Andrew Cuomo’s bid to become New York City’s next mayor took a major hit this week, as the city’s Campaign Finance Board slapped his campaign with a $622,000 penalty for allegedly breaking fundraising rules. The fine stems from what officials say was improper coordination with a super PAC. Now, Cuomo is fighting back, and the controversy is raising new concerns about money, messaging, and the murky line between political strategy and illegal coordination.
Cuomo Campaign Fined
On Monday, the city’s Campaign Finance Board announced New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo was penalized $622,056 for breaking campaign finance rules. Officials say he improperly coordinated with a super PAC named Fix the City.
The Campaign Finance Board said they were withholding the funds, pending the outcome of its investigation. In addition, the board announced that Cuomo was awarded $1.5 million in public matching funds. He had previously missed out on matching funds because of a series of paperwork errors.
“A Message for Voters”
The investigation into Cuomo’s campaign stemmed from a moment earlier this month. The campaign made headlines when an obscure page appeared on his campaign website called “A Message for Voters.”
This page happened to show details on campaign strategy and polling data. It also talked about Cuomo’s focus on the issue of antisemitism and the importance of Black and Latino voters between the ages of 40 and 55.
Critics of the former governor said the page represented “red-boxing,” which is when a campaign posts information for a super PAC in a location where only the PAC would see it.
State Senator and mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie filed the complaint with the board, stating concerns about illegal coordination between Cuomo’s campaign and Fix the City.
After the fine was put into place, Myrie said in a statement, “The Campaign Finance Board just confirmed what we’ve known all along: Andrew Cuomo is for sale. While Donald Trump works to dismantle democracy on the national stage, Cuomo and his billionaire backers are trying to buy City Hall.”
Is Red-Boxing Legal?
While red-boxing is allowed in federal races, it’s not allowed by the Campaign Finance Board. All candidates are prohibited from directly sending messages to PACs that can spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a candidate’s campaign.
At the hearing, Richard Davis, a Campaign Finance Board member, said, “ CFB rules state that the board may determine an expenditure was not independent if the entity making the expenditure utilized strategic information or data that has been made publicly available by the candidate in a manner which the candidate knew or should have known would facilitate such utilization.”
Davis added that red-boxing undercuts “New York City’s strict spending and coordination limits which are in place to ensure voters, not big money, decide elections.”
A Challenge To Come
After the board announced their fine, a spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, said the campaign would be challenging it.
“Our campaign has operated in full compliance with the campaign finance laws and rules, and everything on our website was reviewed and approved by our legal team in advance of publication — as I’m sure Scott Stringer, Justin Brannan and others did when they launched similar pages,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to making that clear when we respond to the Board’s preliminary ruling and receiving the full matching funds to which the campaign is entitled.”
Cuomo Continues to Lead the Pack
Despite a series of stumbles by Cuomo and his campaign, he continues to lead in the polls. Azzopardi added, “In the meantime our campaign’s momentum continues unabated: today we receive $1.5 million on top of the over $3.5 million we have raised in 71 days and are gratified to have the broadest coalition of supporters, and lead in every poll with voters in every borough, gender, race and ethnicity.”
The campaign blamed software errors for their failure to collect required information from donors, which resulted in them being denied matching funds earlier. They also faced criticism for using ChatGPT to write portions of Cuomo’s housing policy, for misspelling names of key union officials when announcing an endorsement and for routinely not showing up for mayoral forums and other public events.
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